fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

The Repentant Cokehead

A former Coca-Cola marketing executive had a change of heart after a pang of conscience: Such a mission would have been inconceivable to the man who joined Coca-Cola back in 1997, Putman said during an interview before the speech. A Midwesterner with boyish looks, Putman had already made a name for himself at two other […]

A former Coca-Cola marketing executive had a change of heart after a pang of conscience:

Such a mission would have been inconceivable to the man who joined Coca-Cola back in 1997, Putman said during an interview before the speech.

A Midwesterner with boyish looks, Putman had already made a name for himself at two other corporate heavyweights: Proctor & Gamble had recruited him straight out of Purdue University and given him his first taste of the profession that has become his life’s passion. Disney brought him to Los Angeles to help brand the company’s movie-inspired merchandise.

Still, Coke was an even bigger league.

“It’s one of the great marketing machines of the world. You’ve got so many tools at your fingertips. . . . You’re dealing with Michael Jackson, the NFL, multimillion-dollar decisions,” he said. “If you’re interested in moving consumers, then you’re most happy when you move millions of consumers. . . . It’s exciting, intoxicating, even. I felt like the king of the world.”

For all the range and reach of Coke’s marketing operation, Putman said he quickly learned it was built around one goal: per capita consumption. “How can we drive more ounces into more bodies more often?”

The term of art among company executives was one Putman had never heard before: “share of stomach.”

“It was a mind-bending paradigm shift for me. We weren’t trying to get share of market. We weren’t about trying to beat Pepsi or Mountain Dew. We were about trying to beat everything.”

There are so many interesting questions embedded in this excerpt. This is amoral marketing at its purest. Putnam’s job was to increase desire (and, of course, consumption) of his perfectly legal product, with no constraint whatsoever. If you read on, you’ll see that market research showed that minorities drank more Coke than white people did — so the company capitalized on that. Putnam now feels guilty that obesity and rates of obesity-related illness are higher among minorities.

But here’s the thing: what, exactly, did Putnam and Coca-Cola do wrong? By the logic of capitalism, and the logic of personal freedom, I mean. Coca-Cola is legal. It’s a free country. Why shouldn’t a company like Coke try to convince more people to buy more of its product?

True, the more of its product people use, the fatter and sicker they become. Aside from the morality of this kind of thing, the medical costs keep going higher and higher. Still, on what basis would you tell Coca-Cola there should be limits on their trying sell their perfectly legal product? I’m not asking rhetorically. It’s just that the kind of moral epiphany and conversion Putnam had is hard to square with our official cultural ideology. Thoughts?

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now